Located at the site of the existing Westside Pavilion in West Los Angeles, Conical Conglomerate is a mixed-use housing, commercial, and retail complex intended to alleviate the area’s housing shortage. At the same time, the project will act as a kind of cultural gateway to West LA and UCLA which transforms the local building aesthetic and becomes an easily identifiable landmark.
This is achieved through the project’s unique architectural expression. A loose collage of conical masses occupies the site - each deformed in such a manner that they retain the general shape of their conical primitives while generating a distinct character through slipping, breaking, scaling, and recombination. This strategy results in a few different massing types; some more haul-like with gentle curvatures, and others more gestural with more extreme curvatures and jagged intersections.
For the most part, the haul-like forms are used for housing - being more compatible with regularization and modularization. Meanwhile, the more gestural forms house the more accommodative retail and commercial functions. Fenestration, too, is indicative of different programs; where there is housing, the windows are smaller in scale and spaced at lesser intervals; and where there are office spaces and commercial functions, the windows are longer and spaced at greater intervals.
Status: School Project
Location: West Los Angeles, CA, US